Firmware Update Delayed...

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by cmbs

My problem with Bookeen is very much their communication.

edit:
Look at their blog.

I noticed an entry by yourself ..... good on yer .....

[Snuffi]

Quote:
I've noticed that those who have problems are most vocal. And they tend to seek out every possible source of aid. Thus, we get a lot of those people right here. It would be nice to actually get some idea of how often a bug/crash occurs. Presuming that our customers' experiences are normal, I've not seen but about 1-in-12 or 1-in-15 customers reporting problems. That could be the customers we attracted were more willing to be patient with a first-generation device; only time will tell the whole story.
/Quote

Of course you will find more critical people on a forum like this because 1) people who have problems flock here to find solutions but also 2) people who are very much interested in their device and like to get the most out of it come here and the latter tend to also be more critical than the average customer.
I count myself in the 2nd category and - as a happy customer (except for a little fighting to get everything delivered) - I think I can give a rather unbiased (or at least not excessively biased) opinion on the issue which is that it is perfectly acceptable that the firmware is still not out. I know that it is a little subjective how one feels about the severeness of a bug but if I compare it to other devices I've had I think the issues are minor because they don't make the core features unusable to a large number of customers. Plus there is already an update to fix a few of the more annoying things for people who contact them.
BUT - and mind you, it's a BIG but - I wholeheartedly agree with everyone complaining here about the lack of communication and planning.
1) I think it is most unwise to give out dates to individual customers, one should never do that. Either you publicly announce it or tell everyone that you don't have a date.
2) If you give some information give it to everyone. Having each customer ask for the same thing over and over again is a huge waste of ressources. No wonder their customer service is unresponsive at times if they have to answer several hundred e-mails all asking about the next firmware (I'm assuming Harry isn't the only one ;-)
3) Use the blog. I've seen there is a short note up telling everyone that it'll take a bit longer to get the FW out and it's really not a big thing, I guess most people could wait for a couple of weeks more if only they were told what was happening. All I can say is: Was it really that hard to put those few lines up?
4) In my opinion good customer support is 80% about good communication. Most customers are actually quite nice people and understand if you tell them that it hasn't quite worked out the way you wanted to and explain to them what will happen next. BUT you have to inform people in advance. If customers complain about unkept promises and AFTERWARDS you tell them some excuse and tell them to wait some more, most people get rather angry even about relatively minor issues. Same with dates you give: If you tell people BEFORE a deadline is due that you need some more time, most people will understand. If you tell them AFTER the date has passed most people will not believe you the next date you give them. That's just how people work ;-)

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Snuffi

3) Use the blog. I've seen there is a short note up telling everyone that it'll take a bit longer to get the FW out and it's really not a big thing, I guess most people could wait for a couple of weeks more if only they were told what was happening. All I can say is: Was it really that hard to put those few lines up?

The reason they put it there was most probably the comment in the previous entry that criticized the lack of information. So it was just a reaction.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by Snuffi

Quote:
I've noticed that those who have problems are most vocal. And they tend to seek out every possible source of aid. Thus, we get a lot of those people right here. It would be nice to actually get some idea of how often a bug/crash occurs. Presuming that our customers' experiences are normal, I've not seen but about 1-in-12 or 1-in-15 customers reporting problems. That could be the customers we attracted were more willing to be patient with a first-generation device; only time will tell the whole story.
/Quote

Snuffi,

Could you please let the forum do the quoting? If it weren't for the fact that I posted the original post you quoted, I'd not know which post to reference back to. (Yes, that's not so much a problem for four or five pages of posts, but if this thread grows to one of the 20+ monsters... )

Of course you will find more critical people on a forum like this because 1) people who have problems flock here to find solutions but also 2) people who are very much interested in their device and like to get the most out of it come here and the latter tend to also be more critical than the average customer.

Exactly so. Which means this is not necessarily representative of the average user.

I count myself in the 2nd category and - as a happy customer (except for a little fighting to get everything delivered) - I think I can give a rather unbiased (or at least not excessively biased) opinion on the issue which is that it is perfectly acceptable that the firmware is still not out. I know that it is a little subjective how one feels about the severeness of a bug but if I compare it to other devices I've had I think the issues are minor because they don't make the core features unusable to a large number of customers. Plus there is already an update to fix a few of the more annoying things for people who contact them.

Yes and no. To some people, not being able to have a page number to reference can make their devices nearly unusable. I'm not one of those, but I can appreciate that they have issues. My biggest complaint - and it's one that boosts my blood pressure - is the lack of an adequate folder navigation system for the Library. As with James Bryant, I've got well over 1,000 ebooks on my SD card and having to page and page and page and page through, let's just say it's not a pretty picture. This can be especially true for ebooks with quite similar titles. And deleting? Don't get me started on deleting! If one is going to have a Delete button, one which works under the basic OS shipped with the device, one should have implemented it within the Library right from firmware version 0.91. (That being the version I started with.)

BUT - and mind you, it's a BIG but - I wholeheartedly agree with everyone complaining here about the lack of communication and planning.
1) I think it is most unwise to give out dates to individual customers, one should never do that. Either you publicly announce it or tell everyone that you don't have a date.

I'm of two minds on this. As a customer, I vehemently agree. But as an ex-coder who's had bosses breathing down my neck for "instant completion" whilst also handing over NEW changes to be added to the current projected update, well...

2) If you give some information give it to everyone. Having each customer ask for the same thing over and over again is a huge waste of ressources. No wonder their customer service is unresponsive at times if they have to answer several hundred e-mails all asking about the next firmware (I'm assuming Harry isn't the only one ;-)

Really can't disagree with this point.

3) Use the blog. I've seen there is a short note up telling everyone that it'll take a bit longer to get the FW out and it's really not a big thing, I guess most people could wait for a couple of weeks more if only they were told what was happening. All I can say is: Was it really that hard to put those few lines up?

No argument here. They've definitely been underusing their blog.

4) In my opinion good customer support is 80% about good communication. Most customers are actually quite nice people and understand if you tell them that it hasn't quite worked out the way you wanted to and explain to them what will happen next. BUT you have to inform people in advance. If customers complain about unkept promises and AFTERWARDS you tell them some excuse and tell them to wait some more, most people get rather angry even about relatively minor issues. Same with dates you give: If you tell people BEFORE a deadline is due that you need some more time, most people will understand. If you tell them AFTER the date has passed most people will not believe you the next date you give them. That's just how people work ;-)

I think maybe a more complet set of posts explaining somewhat of what areas are holding the updates back - for example, if in late March we had been told that implementing a quality page-numbering feature was the "issue" but that they'd finally gotten the Delete button implemented and the Library folder/subfolder system up and running, there might have been a ton of feedback telling them to release the update as-is while a few comments might have urged them to wait for page-numbering to work. If the ratio of comment responses were 60:40, 70:30 or higher in either direction, Bookeen could have judged either to shelve the page-numbering until the next update or, if it had the support for that feature, posted a message explaining that the response so overwhelmingly demanded they continue the development until the page-numbering worked.

Derek

[pieter]

I'm pretty sure the die-hard fans of the Gen3 also flock to this board, which kinda evens out the score. Because of that there are plenty of people defending the reputation of the cybook company.
I don't think they need us to defend their reputation. They have reasonably good product in a market with just a few real competitors (especially in Europe) who have plenty of faults of their own. Besides they're sold out quite a lot, so it's not like they could sell that many more anyway. So, all in all, they're doing well enough. And would be doing well enough even if they would never release another firmware update again.

Besides I think the people coming here for information about the Cybook and it's competitors are mostly adult people who are smart enough to deal with a little whining about page numbers and customer support. They will buy the Cybook if they think they can deal with a reader without page numbers and without a good folder structure. I do not think those are keeping that many people off from buying it.

From a business point of view, I guess I would just hire some PR guy (or a couple of students) because up till now they haven't been very strong in that department. I mean announcing a firmware update without delivering isn't the best PR move. Sony probably fucks up in more ways, but is more professional about it in the sense that they cover it up better. Either by keeping silent about it or by smooth talking over the problem.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

Yes and no. To some people, not being able to have a page number to reference can make their devices nearly unusable. I'm not one of those, but I can appreciate that they have issues.

I honestly wonder what real use page numbers are, given that they are extremely unreliable on ALL MobiPocket implementations. Suppose you're reading a book, page by page, and you note something interesting on page 200. If you later open the book, and do a "goto page 200", the problem is that you won't finish up at the same place - you could be 50 pages out either way. This problem appears to be "inherent" in the core Mobi "engine" - it's not something that Bookeen have introduced. I have to ask, therefore, what the point is of having page numbers that don't really mean anything?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I honestly wonder what real use page numbers are, given that they are extremely unreliable on ALL MobiPocket implementations. Suppose you're reading a book, page by page, and you note something interesting on page 200. If you later open the book, and do a "goto page 200", the problem is that you won't finish up at the same place - you could be 50 pages out either way. This problem appears to be "inherent" in the core Mobi "engine" - it's not something that Bookeen have introduced. I have to ask, therefore, what the point is of having page numbers that don't really mean anything?

A lot of times here it has been explained in a lot of threads that it is not real page number that is important. The imporant thing is to know were you are in a book or a short story and that includes to know how long the thing you are reading is.

I have come to the conclusion that the Cybook now is useless for reading short story collections. When I read a short story collection I skip stories that are not good if they are long. But since I cannnot know how long the story is easily I cannot read it that way. I recently read a collection were one story was maybe 10 pages and the next was maybe 80 pages and it was very annoying. Also as has been mentioned when you read a book you use the knowledge about how many pages are left for adjusting your expectations and maximize your enjoyment.

Had you really missed these points? If not why did you pretend they did not exist?

[HarryT]

No, I didn't miss those points, but it seems to me that page numbers only work for that if they are accurate.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, I didn't miss those points, but it seems to me that page numbers only work for that if they are accurate.

The point is that what is needed for this is not page number but an accurate indication of were you are. So you can count characters and display them and and easily be accurate.